Sunday, 12 April 2015

Ogof Capel.... The key to a successful caving trip.

I have been pestering Brendan about getting in to Ogof Capel for the last couple of years, so when I got a txt from him asking if I was free Sunday to go in I just about bit his hand off :)

We met en route with our leader Dan and parked up on the old heads of the valley road where we kitted up and then headed through the underpass.

After a quick look at the original divers entrance we headed up the ladder to Ogof Gelynnen and were soon making our way through the crawls and chokes to the gated entrance in to Ogof Capel.
At the impressive stream way passage I was humoured, wanting to photograph just about everything, and we made slow progress through to an aqueous flat out crawl below a stunning straw grill to the T junction. Here we first went to take a look at Slalom passage. After yet more photographs the camera gear was dumped and we made our way through a multilevel route to the 30m duck. This is a very chilly chest deep section with limited airspace in places and led through to the impressive Petrified Forest. After this we needed to keep moving so as not to chill down and we took a steady pace out where I suddenly realised that the car key I had in my hand on the way down to the cave I no longer had. Brendan and I started searching around and fortunately Jess and Dan called down to say that I'd dropped it in the underpass!
Happy to be able to access warm dry clothes we quickly changed, said our thanks and goodbyes to Dan before heading off ourselves.